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Being in geosynchronous orbit doesn't make it magcially stable. Geosynchronous orbits degrade, too; those communications and other satelites up there need rocket engines and periodic manuevers to maintain station. In fact, that's how one was lost a couple of years ago; during a station-keeping manuever, someone made a mistake and put the sattelite into a spin that prevented it's command antenna from maintaining an Earth fix, so it couldn't receive the command to stop. Apparently no one put a "If you don't hear from the ground for a day, do some star fixes and re-orient yourself to Earth" command in the software.

The other thing is that there are limited numbers of geosynchronous slots available (they maintain spacing among these guys), so you don't want to waste one parking something there permanently.

The prelim plan is to attach a pair of ion engines to HST and boost slowly to the rqd orbit. Doing this was previously the second choice to bringing it down and putting it in the Smithsonian, but now this option is now off the table, permanently. And a controlled burn reentry will be pretty much impossible given its size and the mass of slow melting metals like Titanium, etc.

Besides, geo synch orbit will allow even better pictures to come across (no grav pull distortions), and is a backup in a way to the JWST, with its risky deployable mirror, etc. And who knows when that will launch, given budgetary and other constraints?

The other thing is that there are limited numbers of geosynchronous slots available (they maintain spacing among these guys), so you don't want to waste one parking something there permanently.

This is only true if you are broadcasting something like digital TV back to earth. There is plenty of physical room in geosynchronous orbit. The spacing is to assure that a receiving antenna can be pointed at the correct satelite. A "silent" satelite can be parked there with no problem.

The stability issue is a reasonable objection. Actuallyt any high orbit will be maintained for significantly longer than a low one. If we can predict 10,000 years until orbital decay brings it back to earth we can presume that either:

1. Mankind will be better able to deal with the problem then, or

2. Civilization will have sunk to a point where the crash won't be meaningful.